Cold
by SnapdragonSmile
Summary: Asriel's perspective on the last chapters of Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, beginning when he finds Lyra in his house. Now complete.
1. Asriel

Some say the world will end in fire,  
Some say in ice.  
From what I've tasted of desire  
I hold with those who favor fire.  
But if it had to perish twice,  
I think I know enough of hate  
To say that for destruction ice  
Is also great  
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Asriel waits. He is unaccustomed to waiting, even thinks himself above it, still, he waits. He is blazing, ready to set light at any moment if his plan does not start in motion, still, he waits.

His prison is more comfortable than most, even equipped with a laboratory, books, other materials to help him plan. He cannot start his plan, making it a prison still. He's trapped in here and he hasn't been limited for years, since he was a child, really.

Still, he waits.

It's been days, weeks, months.

Still, he waits.

He is going over papers, adding another note here and there, restless. He is not a true scholar (even as a child his tutors could not get him to remain with a book for more than a few moments) and he knows these notes will be no use, only a way of filling his mind and pretending to work. If he does not do something, truly do something, he thinks he will go mad.

Stelmaria growls.

There is a sound outside and Thorold rises, going to the door. It's probably some messenger with food or another useless book that won't help at all and Asriel ignores it at first. He hears Thorold speaking and though he cannot distinguish words, Thorold sounds surprised, even wondering.

When he looks up, there is a child. He is alight in a second, standing, Stelmaria roused and growling. He cannot see much of the child, not the age or the sex, even, except that the daemon is shifting from moth to cat to ermine, so it must be right! He has it, at last, he can work now, he'll be in the New World within hours, it must be---

Stelmaria gives him a slight, worried nudge that he does not comprehend. He ignores her at first but she nudges him once more, almost afraid. He looks closer at the child.

There is something familiar in that face, though it is tired, strained and more grown up than the last time he saw it. He pushes the thought from his mind. He must be mistaken! Why would she be here?

She steps forward and the light falls on her face. It is unmistakable.

"No! No!"

It can't be! How could it? Impossible! He can't do it, he won't do it! Of all the disgusting, immoral, impossible things, of all the people to come here! He wants to be sick. He hasn't reacted this way to anything in years. He thought himself capable of anything but the idea of tying her to a machine, of severing her daemon, killing her! His Lyra, like a broken doll, face down in the snow, while he moves ahead to the other world, his thoughts only on the Republic.

No.

"Get out," he roars, "Turn round, get out, _go_! I did not send for you!"

She is frozen, oblivious, terrified. She opens her mouth to speak but closes it again. He cannot look at her without the image of her floating back into his mind. In his schemes, his plans, the child never had a face. It will never be Lyra.

She steps forward, concern on her features and (he is shocked by his luck) a boy is with her, his daemon also shifting, formless, an unknown boy, a boy that does not matter.

He begins to breathe again, placing a hand on Stelmaria's head for reassurance.

"Lyra," he rasps, "That _is_ Lyra?"

"Yes, Uncle Asriel," she replies, sounding exactly, blessedly the same as she ever did, "I came to bring you the alethiometer from the Master of Jordan."

"Yes, of course you did," Asriel dismisses, barely hearing her words, "Who is this?"

His attention is fixed on the boy now, back to the plan. It is much easier this way, when he does not have to care, when everything is ambition and struggle and work, clear, hard lines and marked-out plans. The moment of vulnerability is over.

He'll try to forget it.

"It's Roger Parslow," she explains, "He's the kitchen boy from Jordan College. But---"

"How did you get here?" he demands. She should be in Jordan! He has tried so hard to keep her away from this, to keep her safe! She should be where she was, playing on a rooftop and disobeying, thoughtless and ignorant and safe.

Lyra babbles all sorts of fast, excited nonsense he can barely make out. Stelmaria tries to reach for the child's daemon but Asriel grasps at her fur, restraining her.

He asks Lyra a question or two, getting vague answers. She is such a child, assuming he will know everything she does, hear what she has heard, have seen what she has, seeing the world in terms of herself.

"Thorold," he orders, "run a hot bath for these children and prepare them some food. Then they will need to sleep. Their clothes are filthy; find them something to wear. Do it now, while I talk to this bear."

Lyra seems to falter, exhausted, but Asriel is past being concerned for her. He is clear, focused, himself once more. Yes, it is much easier this way.

He goes to speak with the bear and does not give his daughter another thought.

Later, Asriel sends for her in the library. She seems out of place among his books and papers, tugging at her curls while her daemon flickers between forms. He motions for her to sit.

"Your friend Iorek Byrnison is resting outside," he informs her, "He prefers the cold."

"Did he tell you about his fight with Iofur Raknison?" Lyra leans forward, her face alight, full of a childish excitement, story spilling out of her.

"Not in detail. But I understand he is now the king of Svalbard. Is that true?"

"Of course it's true," she affirms, seeming a little offended, "Iorek never lies."

"He seems to have appointed himself your guardian."

"At least someone has," Stelmaria comments, soft enough so the girl will not hear.

"No. John Faa told him to look after me and he's doing it because of that. He's following John Faa's orders."

"How does John Faa come into this?" he inquires, wondering just where she has been and what she has done now when he and Jordan were not there to shield her.

"I'll tell you if you tell me something," Lyra says, overtaken by an anxious curiosity, "You're my father, en't you?"

How does she know? Has the Coulter woman told her some biased, twisted version of the story? What does she think of him now? Who has she told? What will he say to her now?

The reason he always gave for lying was that she was a thoughtless, lying child. She would spread the story round Oxford, exaggerating it until Marisa had been imprisoned in a glass tower and he burst through, sword in hand, to rescue her.

But there is another reason, a reason he doesn't share. How could he tell her? How could he talk to her about it? How could he explain that whole adult affair, filled with his foolish, youthful mistakes? The confession would make him weak and he couldn't abide that. He was never vulnerable.

And somewhere, he wanted to protect her from it, too.

"Yes. So what?"

The girl is frustrated, enraged. Her daemon transforms into a polecat, snarling.

"So you should have told before, that's what," she spits, "You shouldn't hide things like that from people, because they feel stupid when they find out, and that's cruel. What difference would it make if I knew I was your daughter? You should have said it years ago. You could've told me and asked me to keep it secret, and I would, no matter how young I was, I'd have done that if you asked me. I'd have been so proud nothing would've torn it out of me, if you asked me to keep it secret. But you never. You let other people know, but never told me."

He waits as she finishes her tirade, unaffected. It's a child's tantrum, a child's petulant anger at being kept ignorant, much the same as it likely was when she was left out of some silly game with the servant's children and the Gyptians.

"Who did tell you?"

"John Faa." She sinks back into the chair, her arms crossed.

"Did he tell you about your mother?" If she does not know, what will she do if he tells her? Scold him? Bring some childish Church-learned morality to the situation?

"Yes."

"Then there's not much left for me to tell. I don't think I want to be interrogated and condemned by an insolent child. I want to hear what you've seen and done on the way here."

"I brought you the bloody alethiometer, didn't I? I looked after it all the way from Jordan, I hid it and I treasured it, all through what's happened to us, and I learned about using it, and I carried it all this bloody way when I could've just given up and been safe, and you en't even said thank you, nor showed any sign that you're glad to see me. I don't know why I ever done it. But I did, and I kept on going, even in Iofur Raknison stinking palace with all them bears around me I kept on going, all on me own, and I tricked him into fighting with Iorek so's I could come on here for your sake... And when you did see me, you like to fainted, as if I was some horrible thing you never wanted to see again. You en't human, Lord Asriel. You en't my father. My _father_ wouldn't treat me like that. Fathers are supposed to love their daughters, en't they? You don't love me, and I don't love you, and that's a fact. I love Farder Coram, and I love Iorek Byrnison, I love an armored bear more'n I love my father. And I bet Iorek Byrnison loves me more'n you do."

Lyra rises while she gives this speech, her eyes blazing and her daemon snarling and hissing. When she finishes, she sits down, petulant and triumphant, a few tears staining her face.

Asriel doesn't care, or at least, he stops himself from caring. Lyra can thrash and cry and scream all she wishes but she is safe and he will use the boy tomorrow and go into the new world. He will do his work and she will be returned to Jordan where she belongs. This whole ghastly affair that never should have happened will be forgotten.

But she wouldn't understand that. She is only a child.

"You told me yourself he's only following John Faa's orders. If you're going to be sentimental, I shan't waste time talking to you."

"Take your bloody alethiometer, then, and I'm going back with Iorek."

"Where?"

"Back to the palace. He can fight with Mrs. Coulter and the Oblation Board, when they turn up. If he loses, then I'll die too, I don't care. If he wins, we'll send for Lee Scoresby and I'll sail away in his balloon and---"

"Who's Lee Scoresby?" Asriel doesn't understands half what Lyra says most of the time, all this rapid chatter about people he doesn't know or care about. It's just as well. He doesn't understand her mindless, infantile chatter and she wouldn't understand his thoughts either if he told them.

Rusakov, put to death for knowing more than what was holy, what was safe and comforting and false. The Church, suppressing and controlling. Standing in court, as some God-fearing vulture of a magistrate stripped all he owned from him. Sin, an imaginary name for human nature. That's what frightened the Church, after all. Human nature. A hole blown into the sky, with another world inside, waiting for him. Freedom, a Republic of Heaven without books of laws, without fear, order or control.

Her mother, making empty promises, trying to make him into another one of her doting fools and crying when he refused to be one. She'd said she loved him, fuming at him in another, long-forgotten tirade, so similar to the one Lyra had just given him, all about how different he could have been from the other men, the other lovers.

Love. It didn't matter whether it existed or not. It wasn't something to celebrate or mourn, or even waste a moment's thought on.

And Lyra wouldn't understand why a secure, wealthy, titled man would risk everything for a woman he couldn't have. She wouldn't understand Edward Coulter's face, red, humiliated and furious, lunging forward until he was silenced in a second, his expression frozen, daemon fading. She wouldn't understand her mother's dutiful fear of heresy, of sin, her ruthless search for Dust.

Dust. It all comes back to Dust, doesn't it?

"An aeronaut. He brought us here and then we crashed. Here you are, here's the alethiometer. It's all in good order."

Asriel doesn't touch it. It's useless to him, in any case. He tried to use it, long ago, spending hours willing the thing to move its hands for him, tell him what he needed to know. He never could and it hardly matters now. He doesn't need it. He's shaped his plan without help.

He needs nobody.

"And I suppose," she goes on, worked into a fever, "I ought to tell you that Mrs. Coulter's on her way to Svalbard, and as soon as she hears what's happened to Iofur Raknison, she'll be on her way here. In a zeppelin, with a whole lot of soldiers, and they're going to kill us all, by order of the Magesterium."

He's almost amused by her tendency for the dramatic.

"They'll never reach us."

"You don't know," she falters.

"Yes, I do," he scoffs. Stelmaria has barely moved from his feet for the whole exchange, even as Pantalaimon shifts and snarls. She is alert but unmoving, ignoring him.

"Have you got another alethiometer, then?"

It's so characteristic of a child, assuming, unable to understand anyone knowing more than they do.

"I don't need an alethiometer for that. Now I want to hear about your journey here, Lyra. Start from the beginning. Tell me everything."

And she does.


	2. Lyra

He listens to Lyra, listens in a way he never has before, focusing on her, taking in every word she says. He keeps his face impassive, though now and then his fingers curl ever so slightly round Stelmaria's fur, tense. It happens when he learns how easily she was taken by her mother, despite his orders and when he learns how little hesitation Lord Faa had in spreading the story and Coulter's sugar-coated lies of sin and Dust. And he can't help an irrepressible sense of pride, either, at all she has done. She has fooled her mother, freed the children of Bolvangar, worked the alethiometer, tricked a bear.

He is proud of her, though he will never say so, never even give her a kind word and never regret it.

When she finishes she gives him a hard stare, challenging him.

"So there's one thing I want to know and I reckon I've got the right to know it, like I had the right to know who I really was. And if you didn't tell me that, you've got to tell me this, in recompense. So: what's Dust? And why's everyone so afraid of it?"

Even a few minutes ago, he would not have told her. He examines her, weighing his previous judgments against her story and all she already knows. Perhaps he has misjudged her. Insolent and ignorant as she still is, perhaps she can hear this much.

He tells her. He makes his words simpler, suitable for her age and scant education but he does not, for once, patronize her. He tells her nearly all he knows, speaks the way he would to a scholar.

"The Magisterium," he finishes, "decided Dust was the physical evidence for original sin. Do you know what original sin is?"

Lyra pulls a face.

"Sort of."

"No, you don't. Go to the shelf beside the desk and bring me the Bible."

She does, handing it to him.

"You do remember the story of Adam and Eve?"

"'Course. She wasn't supposed to eat the fruit and the serpent tempted her, and she did."

"And what happened then?" he demands.

"Ummm... They were thrown out. God threw them out of the garden."

The most simplistic, childish response possible, of course. He frowns.

"God had told them not to eat the fruit, because they would die. Remember, they were naked in the garden, they were like children, their daemons took on any form they desired. But this is what happened."

Asriel opens the book and reads to her. She listens, fixed in a way he's never seen before. Her eyes do not dull as they have in the times he's seen her lessons. She seems to comprehend.

"And that was how sin came into the world," he says, "sin and shame and death. It came the moment their daemons became fixed."

"But..." Lyra begins, fidgeting, "It en't true, is it? Not true like chemistry or engineering, not that kind of true? There wasn't really an Adam and Eve? The Cassington Scholar told me it was just a kind of fairy tale."

Asriel explains, about metaphor in the Bible, about different interpretations and Rusakov and Church scholars and of course, Dust, always back to Dust.

"And what about the Gobblers?" she asks.

"The General Oblation Board... Your mother's gang," he spits, "Clever of her to spot the chance of setting up her own power base, but she's a clever woman, as I dare say you've noticed. It suits the Magisterium to allow all kinds of different agencies to flourish. They can play them off against one another; if one succeeds, they can pretend to have been supporting it all along, and if it fails, they can pretend it was a renegade outfit which had never been properly licensed. You see, your mother's always been ambitious for power. At first she tried to get it in the normal way, through marriage, but that didn't work, as I think you've heard."

No, he got in the way, Lyra got in the way. Asriel spits every word as though it were something sour he longed to get out of his mouth.

"So she had to turn to the Church. Naturally she couldn't take the route a man could have taken---priesthood and so on---it had to be unorthodox; she had to set up her own order, her own channels of influence, and work through that. It was a good move to specialize in Dust. Everyone was frightened of it; no one knew what to do; and when she offered to direct an investigation, the Magisterium was so relieved that they backed her with money and resources of all kinds."

There is a grudging respect when he speaks of her, a respect he does not like to admit. Marisa has been a thousand things to him; lover, enemy, enigma, even very nearly his wife.

She is a worthy opponent, too, and Asriel would far rather she weren't.

"But they were cutting---" Lyra breaks off, clutching her daemon for reassurance, "You know what they were doing! Why did the Church let them do anything like that?"

Asriel almost wants to laugh, thinking of men stoned to death, of burned witches, of Calvin's reign. Of course, the Church would never do harm. Nearly everyone has been force-fed that lie, courtesy of sweet-voiced agents like Marisa. Even Lyra, after all she has seen, believes it.

"There was a precedent," he begins, telling her about castration, making child-men. It is all the same. Fighting against adulthood, against understanding. He supposes he almost can't blame Marisa. If it weren't for her precious, frightening Dust, she would still be Edward Coulter's pretty, shielded toy.

"And this would be so much more hygienic," he sneers, "than the old methods, when they didn't have anesthetics or sterile bandages or proper nursing care. It would be gentle by comparison."

"It isn't!" Lyra protests, "It isn't!"

"No. Of course not. That's why they had to hide away in the far North, in darkness and obscurity. And why the Church was glad to have someone like your mother in charge. Who could doubt someone so charming, so well-connected, so sweet and reasonable? But because it was an obscure and unofficial kind of operation, she was someone the Magisterium could deny if they needed to, as well."

At least he never had that image of Marisa, whatever he thought of her, he never imagined some virtuous woman in her. But then, if he had, he wouldn't have been drawn to her in the first place.

"But whose idea was it to do that cutting in the first place?"

"It was hers. She guessed that the two things that happen at adolescence might be connected: the change in one's daemon and the fact that Dust began to settle. Perhaps if the daemon were separated from the body, we might never be subject to Dust---to original sin. The question was whether it was possible to separate daemon and body without killing the person. But she's traveled in many places, and seen all kinds of things. She's traveled in Africa, for instance. The Africans have a way of making a slave called a zombi. It has no will of its own; it will work day and night without ever running away or complaining. It looks like a corpse..."

"It's a person without their daemon!" Lyra exclaims.

Clever girl.

"Exactly. So she found out that it was possible to separate them."

"And... Tony Costa told me about the horrible phantoms they have in the northern forests. I suppose they might be the same kind of thing."

"That's right. Anyway, the General Oblation Board grew out of ideas like that, and out of the Church's obsession with original sin."

Stelmaria begins to fidget and he places a hand on her head to calm her.

"There was something else that happened when they made the cut. And they didn't see it. The energy that links body and daemon is immensely powerful. When the cut is made, all that energy dissipates in a fraction of a second. They didn't notice, because they mistook it for shock, or disgust, or moral outrage, and they trained themselves to feel numb towards it. So they missed what it could do, and they never thought of harnessing it..."

Lyra is shivering, clinging to her daemon, rising and going to the window, eyes wide with horror.

"And what were you doing," she asks, turning to him, "Did you do any of that cutting?"

She is examining him, her eyes almost scornful. It's clear she believes him capable and she is right. She's sharp, clever like her mother and he can't decide whether to be proud of her or to wish she were duller.

"I'm interested in something quite different. I don't think the Oblation Board goes far enough. I want to go to the source of Dust itself."

"The source? Where's it come from, then?"

She is fiercely curious, so clever and for a moment he considers bringing her with him, thinks of what she could discover, how she could help.

But she is only a child. He cannot forget that.

"From the other universe we can see through the Aurora."

Lyra inspects him once more from where he sits, two identical pairs of eyes scanning him, girl and daemon both. She twists her lips into a miniature expression of disapproval and turns away.

"What is the other universe?"

"One of uncountable billions of parallel worlds." He can feel his skin burning at the thought of stepping through the window. Even as he explains the thoughts that have run through his mind thousands of times to Lyra, he is thinking of someplace else. This earth is too small for him now. He has outgrown it, like a boy discarding a silly toy he thinks he is too old for. He is imagining the other worlds, perhaps a world without a Church, a world where people are not afraid of themselves. How similar would the worlds be to his own? How different?

And if there is not such a world, he will create one.

"And I'm going to the world beyond the Aurora, because I think that's where all the Dust in this universe comes from. You saw the slides I showed the Scholars in the retiring room. You saw Dust pouring into this world from the Aurora. You've seen that city yourself. If light can cross the barrier between the universe, if Dust can, if we can see that city, then we can build a bridge and cross. It needs a phenomenal burst of energy. But I can do it. Somewhere out there is the origin of all the dust, all the death, the sin, the misery, the destructiveness in the world. Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it, Lyra. _That's_ original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die."

And they've tried to destroy him, too, stop him from learning, traveling, seeing. They've tried to destroy him because he knows. But he's too strong for them. He is stronger than the Church, stronger than their Authority, stronger than Dust itself, perhaps!

Asriel isn't sure why he lies to his daughter about the plan, why he doesn't tell her about the true nature of Dust, his actual plan for it. Perhaps is it because in the firelight, her eyes wide, glittering and fierce, her mouth curled into a doubtful smirk and her daemon as a silver fox at her feet, she looks exactly like her mother. Perhaps it is because he does not trust anyone with the truth, even his own daughter after all she has done for him. Perhaps he simply can't be bothered.

Or perhaps he's had enough of the truth for one evening.

"Is that why they put you here?"

"Yes. They are terrified. And with good reason."

New images are flashing in Lord Asriel's mind, the door to the new world, the energy flashing from the boy to create his passage. There is no regret this time.

He stands.

Lyra sits still in her chair, a miniature ice sculpture. She looks the way she did on those old visits to Jordan College, awe-struck and fearful. Any resemblance to Marisa is gone. She is simply a child now.

"Go to bed," he commands, "Thorold will show you where to sleep."


	3. Roger

Thorold stands before him, his hands on the boy's shoulders. The boy looks pale, uncertain, frightened. His daemon sits mouse-formed at his feet.

Behind them, the dogs are pulling at the reins of the sledge, straining to move forward. The sledge is loaded with his instruments, everything he needs.

"I have the boy, my Lord," Thorold begins, "But---"

"I have no further need of you, then. You may go back inside."

Thorold looks conflicted for a moment, his eyes flickering from his master to the boy, doubtful. Then he seems to remember himself and drops his head.

"Yes, my Lord."

And he disappears back into the house, leaving Asriel and the boy alone.

"Get in the sledge, boy," Asriel commands. Stelmaria plucks the boy's daemon from the snow, holding her with one claw.

"But, Lyra---"

"Lyra is asleep and will remain so."

"Why? What do you---"

He is impatient. He will wait no longer. Lord Asriel walks to the sledge. Stelmaria follows, still holding the boy's daemon in her teeth as she shifts forms, struggling to get free. The link between human and daemon is too strong. Even as the boy looks back towards the house, darting glances to Lyra's window, he is forced to come.

They ride in silence. Asriel knows the landscape will be lit soon enough, bears, witches, humans all scuttling round in chaos. Marisa will be here too, with her Church allies. Now, all is dark and quiet. He has time. He will be gone by the time the strife begins.

Through the journey, Stelmaria does not let the boy's daemon loose. The child calls for Lyra now and then as they go, as though he thinks she can hear him. He does not look at Asriel, afraid to even meet his eye. It is not until halfway through the journey that the boy musters the courage to speak, even then keeping his eyes downcast, his daemon in the form of a dog.

"Sir? If you don't mind my asking, where are we going, sir? What are we doing?"

"I'm afraid you couldn't begin to understand," Asriel replies sharply, keeping his eyes forward.

He is almost there. He can feel it.

"You could try, sir. I might understand. And if I didn't, it wouldn't matter, would it?" the boy (Robert? Roger? Robin?) implores. He would sound insolent were it not for pleading tone of his voice.

Asriel remains silent.

"Well, if you can't do that, what about Lyra? Your---your niece, you never told her where you took me, did you? She'll worry."

He sounds hopeful.

"Lyra is perfectly safe," Asriel asserts. It doesn't answer the question and they both know it. But it's true, more honest than any answer he could have given. Lyra is perfectly safe. He's made sure of that.

They ride the rest of the way in silence.

Asriel unloads the sledge, almost throwing his equipment on the snow. He is so close. The boy watches him with wide, confused, frightened eyes. In the distance, Asriel sees black shapes flying. Witches. His witches. They have agreed to help him and though he is loath to admit it, he needs their aid. He cannot carry out the plan without their help, without money from the colleges, without a child.

Oh, how he wishes he could.

Their queen was once his lover, though she has long since faded into his blurred memory, a selective memory that keeps facts and plans so well and people so badly. He can only remember a few of his lovers with any vividness. Lilike, his first witch, running her hands over him lightly and give him warm, sad smiles, as though she was afraid he would grow old and die the moment she turned her eyes from him. Ruta Skadi, barely a year after his child was born, so wild, so different, so shameless, so unafraid.

And Marisa. He would like to forget her but she resurfaces. Sometimes he dreams his hands are circled round her neck, squeezing, pulling the breath from her. She falls, delicate, powerless. That loathsome monkey is fading from existence. Other times, she is in his bed, by his side as he works, walking with him into the new world.

Lord Asriel is thinking of none of this while he assembles his equipment, lighting a naphtha lamp that throws fire over the snow, waiting for the witches to land. He is not hearing the boy's cries. He does not see the lights from Svalbard, does not see the other legions of witches. He does not think of the future.

He is not of this world anymore. None of it matters to him.

A dark-eyed, vigilant raven lands on the snow beside him.

"Lord Asriel," he says, his eyes taking in both the wires and the burning expression on Asriel's face. Asriel does not acknowledge him, waving his hand towards the wires coming from the sledge. The raven obeys without question.

Lord Asriel is used to being obeyed. He is a man of extremes. He is either hated or revered. He has followers, disciples and enemies. Whether he is hated or admired, he is always respected.

The apparatus is nearly ready. Asriel goes over to the sledge, grabbing the boy's arm.

"Come on," he says, "It's time."

The boy knows better than to ask what it is time for. He goes a few steps, frozen by fear. He looks behind at the sledge tracks and Stelmaria takes his daemon in her teeth in an instant.

No chances can be taken.

The boy, snivelling thing, tries to run. He is paralyzed by fear. He calls the name of his daemon and he calls for Lyra.

What would he think if Lyra were here in his place? Would he long for her so?

His daemon shifts in rapid forms, none able to escape Stelmaria.

The boy continues to approach Asriel, tugging at his arm. Spoiled, distracting brat. Frustrated, Asriel throws him to the ground. The boy yelps as he hits the ice and remains in place, aside from his whining cries. Satisfied, Asriel goes back to his work, drowning out the boy's cries.

It will be a relief when he is no longer in the way.

Asriel hears noise and, by instinct, his deft hands grow quicker and Stelmaria's teeth sink deeper. He expects it is more witches, perhaps not his friends. Marisa and her fearful Church agents, come to tell him, like a child, that he is not permitted to work.

When he looks up, he sees Lyra, dressed in fur, dishevelled and running. He does not know how she has found out but somehow he cannot be surprised. Clever girl. Clever, insolent girl.

Asriel connects the last wire and the Aurora obeys him. It awakens, brilliant and endless. He is controlling it. He is lit by a fierce elation.

The raven daemon flies down, nodding to him, and disappears into the distance.

Lyra is running closer, shouting and the boy has turned his face to Lyra, distressed. Asriel motions to him. He steps forward, Stelmaria pulling the boy's daemon forward. The boy moves forward, weeping and begging.

"No! Run!" Lyra commands, running closer.

Silly girl. It is too late now.

Her daemon has launched himself at Stelmaria, taking the boy's daemon from her teeth. They attack Stelmaria, their childish, weak forms railing against her. She is too strong for them.

She and Asriel have fought against so much. The Church, bears, witches. And now his own child thinks she can be a heroine, returning the world to the way it has been, for the sake of a child. For the sake of the kitchen boy.

And as the moments go by, Asriel forgets he is Lyra's father. She is some insignificant enemy. He never gave orders to the Master to keep her safe, never kept her picture with him on expeditions, never was repulsed at the idea of sacrificing her. Stelmaria brings sharp claws across Pantalaimon's face, leaving deep gashes in his skin. She does not regret.

He will kill Lyra now, if he has to.

Asriel looks ahead, thinking only of the new world. He sees the cliff moving below them and knows he has won. The fight is over.

He moves the wire.

"LYRA!"

The sky breaks.

Lord Asriel does not look behind him. He does not see the life leave the boy's face. He does not see his daemon fade, clinging to existence. He does not see his daughter's angry tears.

It's a city in the sky, the same one he's taken photograms over, the city that's filled his thoughts for months. He and Stelmaria tilt savage, happy faces up to it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just one more chapter after this. Also, Pullman has said that Asriel does, in fact, carry pictures of Lyra, whom "he is immensely proud of" with him on expeditions.


	4. Marisa

For a moment, he is caught in it, not thinking of Dust or the Authority or ambitions. On the other side of the window, there is sun, warm on his face. He sees stretching earth before him and, for a moment, he takes it in. He pushes his hood off, watching the landscape.

He is tired of the frozen, barren North. He has had enough of darkness, cold isolation and endless snow. Why did he never realize it before?

He shouldn't look back. He should walk and keep walking until he leaves the confines of his world behind for the rest of his life. But he hears steps and out of instinct and curiosity, he does turn.

Here she is.

They've fought a hidden war for years, making subtle moves and pretending their attacks are purely for the sake of the Church, for the sake of Dust, for the sake of Lyra. He has not looked her in the face for six years, not since she left his rooms stiff and shameful, as though she were trying to erase the previous night from her mind.

Their daemons step forward, assessing.

Are you the same as you were? In any little way at all?

Will you fight me?

What are you planning?

Can we pretend?

Are we merely the Magisterium's agent and the heretic, two sides of a new struggle, barely people at all?

Asriel knows the answer to the last question is yes. They haven't fallen onto opposite sides by chance or by a collection of little choices leading them to their places. They have chosen, every moment along the way. Neither of them have ever doubted their positions.

Marisa comes forward, taking stiff, measured little steps as though beginning a dance. She looks oddly young, unsure, vulnerable. And then she seems to fall forward and he takes her.

They say nothing. He does not kiss her. Instead he examines her face, drinks her in. He wants her, no less than he did twelve years ago when Lyra was conceived. She has caused nothing but strife for him, her and that lying, lawless daughter she has given him. She's been responsible for nearly every trouble he's had in the past years. And still he wants her, wants her so much that it burns him.

"They'll never allow it---" Marisa begins and he laughs.

"Allow it? We've gone beyond being allowed, as if we were children. I've made it possible for anyone to cross, if they wish."

Does she think him mad? The light plays across her face and he cannot tell. He sees everything he can imagine in her expressions, desire and fear pulling at her, doubt, curiosity, ambition.

"They'll forbid it!" she insists, "They'll seal it off and excommunicate everyone who tries!"

"Too many people will want to. They won't be able to prevent them. This will mean the end of the Church, Marisa, the end of the Magisterium, the end of all those centuries of darkness! Look at that light up there: that's the sun of another world! Feel the warmth of it on your skin, now!"

Asriel turns his face closer to the light, to the warmth. He knows Marisa must be stifled by it too, by the dark, empty North, by the laws of the Church, by foolish games of pretend-I-believe and pretend-I-agree.

She must wonder as much as he does. What will be in the other world? Are the laws gone? What is different? What is the same?

Perhaps in another world, another Asriel waits by a window and beckons another Marisa to come with him. Perhaps in a lawless, free world, another Asriel does as he pleases, admired instead of vilified. Does another Marisa work beside him, unafraid of Church and sin?

"They are stronger than anyone, Asriel! You don't know---"

"I don't know? I? No one in the world knows better than I how strong the Church is. But it isn't strong enough for this. The Dust will change everything, anyway. There's no stopping it now."

"Is that what you wanted," Marisa forces out, "to choke and kill us all with sin and darkness?"

So this is what she thinks. She feels the light on her skin and calls it evil. He touches her and she dismisses it as sin.

"I wanted to break out, Marisa! And I have. Look, look at the palm trees waving on the shore! Can you feel that wind? A wind from another world! Feel it on your hair, on your face..."

He pushes back her hood and spins her round to face the window, running his hands through her hair. She's uncertain, her eyes moving forward and back.

She is afraid.

How can she be? She tortures, she kills, she tempts, she seduces, she destroys. And yet she is faced by Dust and sin and she turns away, terrified.

She shakes her head, conflicted and clings to him.

"No---no---they're coming, Asriel---they know where I've gone---"

"Then come with me, away and out of this world!" he commands. It would be so easy. Just a step, one step and they will be gone.

"I daren't---" she begins.

"You? Dare not? Your child would come. Your child dare anything, and shame her mother."

It is a good strike, he thinks, remembering what Lyra told him about how she ran to the intercision machine, distraught. Perhaps Marisa has two weak points, more to play on than he thought.

"Then take her and welcome. She's more yours than mine, Asriel."

He almost wants to laugh at this. Take a child on the expedition with him, his uneducated, disobedient, lying, bastard child!

"Not so. You took her in; you tried to mold her. You wanted her then."

"She was too coarse, too stubborn. I'd left it too late... But where is she now? I followed her footsteps up..."

Yes, far too late. He may have failed, been captured but he stayed in place eleven years. Long enough to make sure Lyra was never turned into a mannered, polished little lady, a miniature Marisa.

How very perfect. Her own child is everything she despises. Lyra is nearly identical to the street brats she lures every day.

"You want her, still?" he scoffs, "Twice you've tried to hold her, and twice she's got away. If I were her, I'd run, and keep on running, sooner than give you a third chance."

Asriel takes Marisa to him and crushes her lips against his. She is shaking against him but she feels the same as she ever did.

Her lips, his lips. Her hands, his hands. Her skin, his skin.

He's never stopped wanting her.

Their daemons move on the snow, Stelmaria pressing her claws into the monkey. How far can she cut? Will she carve red marks in his skin, leave? Will she draw blood? Slash to his bone? Kill him?

Marisa pulls herself back, all brittle, regretful determination.

"No, Asriel---my place is in this world, not that---"

"Come with me!" he orders, "Come and work with me!"

It is not a question.

"We couldn't work together, you and I." She shakes her head.

Why not? They are Church and sin, yes, but they are the same underneath. He could show her the truth of Dust, he could convince her, manipulate her until she was one of his.

"No? You and I could take the universe to pieces and put it together again, Marisa! We could find the source of Dust and stifle it forever! And you'd like to be part of that great work; don't lie to me about it. Lie about everything else, lie about the Oblation Board, lie about your lovers---yes, I know about Boreal, and I care nothing---lie about the Church, lie about the child, even, but don't lie about what you truly want..."

And he kisses her again, fierce, hungry. He is winning, he knows he is winning. He is winning the game she's made her life playing. What irony! What a triumph! Marisa is here, unmasked, vulnerable. She succumbs. He can do whatever he likes with her.

What a wonderful, terrible, bitter joke.

"If I don't come, you'll try to destroy me," she breathes, pulling herself from him.

"Why should I want to destroy you?" he laughs, "Come with me, work with me, and I'll care whether you live or die. Stay here, and you lose my interest at once. Don't flatter yourself that I'd give you a second thought. Now stay and work your mischief, or come with me."

What Asriel says is true, or at least he hopes it is. In either case, it is the right thing to say. Marisa would absolutely delight, revel in the idea of a pining, tortured lover who longed for her. It's an old, tired, twisted game.

And Marisa loves him. He knows it. She has always loved him, ever since she met him. And she has pretended and tricked and deceived from the beginning.

He is not Edward Coulter. He is not Carlo Boreal. He is not one of her London lovers, one of her countless princes, kings, admirals, generals, politicians who she controls and manipulates.

What a wonderful, terrible, bitter joke.

Asriel does not know or want to know if he loves her in return, if he loves her still. He hopes he does not. He does not need that weakness.

"No," she says, "No."

The world seems to be pulling at her, she sways and looks to fall but she straightens herself.

And just a moment ago, he was so sure he had her. Whatever he thought, he cannot be surprised now. Fear has a stronger pull on her. He was a fool to forget that.

He takes a moment to look at the sparkling snow, at the blazing Svalbard below. He looks at Lyra, in the snow below the cliff, poised like a jungle cat. Her eyes are burning, she is disgusted.

Marisa has stepped a few feet away from him, tears running down her face, cradling her daemon in her arms.

He will have to forget them. He was meant for other things.

Lord Asriel takes a last look at this world, without sentimentality or nostalgia. He won't miss it, won't regret a single step he ever made. He turns himself forward and steps into the sky.

He will never return.

FINIS


End file.
